In certain circles, such as the ones the blog runs in, The Safety Fire are legends; their blend of alternative rock, progressive metal and sheer musical genius will always have an echo. And so, as Good Tiger release their second album, We Will All Be Gone, the comparisons are inevitable; while the first release by the project enjoyed the grace of being the first, the sophomore release is well and truly chained to a narrative and that narrative will get compared to The Safety Fire no matter what anyone does. Which might be a shame, since the projects are so different in their approach to progressive metal and aim to accomplish different things, not to mention the obviously massive influence of one Elliot Coleman, a legendary figure in and of himself.

Welcome to the first installment of Death’s Door in 2018! Wipe your feet on the mat, pull up a bone chair, and grab a flagon of the Blood of the Nonbelievers. We have much to discuss. It’s been a minute. Firstly, I would like to posit an inquiry: What in…

Our staff has shifted quite a bit since we posted our first aggregate AOTY list back in 2014. From refocusing our content to implementing The Brooklyn Plan™ to publishing our 2017 AOTY list, our roster of contributors has fluctuated substantially in terms of numbers and genre preferences. This ebb and flow…

It is folly to try to judge a piece of art independently of the circumstances surrounding its conception. A lack of awareness of those circumstances is excusable, of course, but when it comes to The Faceless, that seems quite unlikely to be the case. The Californian technical/progressive death metal band, which is probably better described as Michael Keene’s project, have been through some troubles. They made one of the most important albums of the genre in 2008 with Planetary Duality, and ever since then listeners have been looking for them to make an album that’s equally impactful. 2012’s Autotheism, regardless of its quality, wasn’t what most people wanted in that sense. After yet another 4+ year gap, and many line-up changes, tour cancellations and other drama, the band, well, Michael Keene is back with his fourth album, In Becoming A Ghost. It’s his most somber and personal album for sure, but is it a good album? Partially.

Each month, we always seem to come to the same conclusion when it comes to our Editors’ Picks column: Friday release days open the floodgates and unleash a seemingly endless stream of quality new music. But while some of our Editors and Contributors sit down gleefully each week to dive into this newly stocked treasure…

For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no surprise that many of us on staff have pretty eclectic tastes that range far outside of metal and heavy things. We can’t post about all of them at length here, but we can at least let you know what we’re actually listening to. For those that would like to participate as well (and please do) can drop a 3X3 in the comments, which can be made with tapmusic.net through your last.fm account, or create it manually with topsters.net. Also, consider these posts open threads to talk about pretty much anything music-related. We love hearing all of your thoughts on this stuff and love being able to nerd out along with all of you.

It’s been a while, but we’re back, so welcome to another edition of Connecting the Dots, and today we will be focusing on mathcore masterminds The Dillinger Escape Plan! Whilst they’re soon going to be shutting up shop (R.I.P), we can remain eternally grateful to the incredible records they’ve released during their two-decade career, their vicious live performances, and the incredible other musical projects they leave in their wake. Without further ado, let’s dive into the amazing projects these musicians have been a part of.

This week, Eden is gone! I swear this isn’t some Fast and Furious 8 situation where Eden and I hate each other and don’t appear on screen at the same time (see Vin Diesel and The Rock), but just real life getting in the way. But Tidal is still alive, so we must go on. This week we have Simon Handmaker, fellow Heavy Blog editor and meme master. We discuss some news/new music, like The Faceless facing troubles, Spotify needing to change their business model, and new music from: Myrkur, Contrarian, Wolves in the Throne Room, Celeste, Humanity’s Last Breath, Cytotoxin, Rings of Saturn, Ne Obliviscaris, Tera Melos, Converge, Akercocke and August Burns Red. Then we do some cool people stuff talking about The Room and The Disaster Artist, some movies by A24 productions including The Lobster, then Pyre and PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. Enjoy!